Suchergebnisse

Protected areas play important roles for protecting many endangered species in Indonesia. However, very limited information regarding roles of protected areas and non-protected areas for supporting the habitat of less-concerned carnivores in Java, leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis javanensis). We aim to assess the relative roles of non-protected areas for the habitat of this cat on the highly fragmented and populated island of Java. We develop species distribution modelling, using Maxent by integrating various sources of presence data of this species and environmental data. Our finding confirms that leopard cat can life in various habitat types but mainly patchy forest areas. While most of the protected areas are suitable for the habitat of this smallest cat on Java, the non-protected areas provide much larger areas for its habitat (66.8 %). Our findings highlighted the importance of maintaining connectivity among habitat patches in non-protected areas, habitat protection using current government policy on high conservation value forest and essential ecosystems areas. Pentingnya Kawasan Non Lindung sebagai Habitat Kucing Hutan (Prionailurus bengalensis javanensis Desmarest, 1816) di Jawa, IndonesiaIntisariKawasan lindung memainkan peran penting dalam melindungi banyak spesies yang terancam punah di Indonesia. Walaupun demikian, informasi mengenai peran kawasan lindung dan kawasan non lindung untuk mendukung habitat karnivora yang kurang mendapat perhatian di Jawa, kucing hutan (Prionailurus bengalensis javanensis), sangat terbatas. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menilai peran kawasan non lindung sebagai habitat kucing hutan di Pulau Jawa, pulau yang sangat terfragmentasi dan padat penduduk. Kami mengembangkan pemodelan distribusi spesies, menggunakan Maxent dengan mengintegrasikan berbagai sumber data kehadiran spesies kucing hutan dan data lingkungan. Temuan kami menegaskan bahwa kucing hutan dapat hidup di berbagai jenis habitat tetapi habitat utamanya adalah kawasan hutan yang agak terbuka. Meskipun sebagian besar kawasan lindung sesuai untuk habitat kucing terkecil di Jawa ini, kawasan non lindung justru menyediakan area yang jauh lebih besar untuk habitat kucing hutan (66,8 %). Temuan kami juga menyoroti pentingnya menjaga konektivitas antar habitat di kawasan non lindung dan perlindungan habitat dengan menggunakan kebijakan pemerintah saat ini tentang hutan Bernilai Konservasi Tinggi dan Kawasan Ekosistem Esensial.

Context A central problem in road ecology is the need to minimise roadkill without exacerbating fragmentation. The best current solution to this problem is wildlife-exclusion fencing combined with crossing structures. However, because species vary in their propensity to use crossing structures, optimising their design for a suite of species remains a challenge. Aims We investigated medium- and large-mammal use of undercrossings along Highway 101 in the Central Coast of California. Specifically, we quantified how undercrossing size, surrounding habitat, and the presence of a wildlife-exclusion fence, influenced overall species richness, as well as use by black bear, mule deer, puma, and bobcat. Methods Using wildlife cameras, we documented mammal use at 11 undercrossings in our study area. We calculated the openness index of each undercrossing and remotely measured habitat features, such as percentage tree cover, and distance to nearest stream. We determined the relative importance of these factors on overall species richness, and the activity of focal species, using generalised linear mixed models in an information-theoretic framework. Key results Mesocarnivores used a wider variety of undercrossings, and used them more frequently, than did larger mammals. Species richness and bear activity were greater closer to streams, and there was more bear activity at undercrossings within the wildlife-exclusion fence zone than outside it. Deer activity was strongly and positively related to undercrossing openness. Our puma and bobcat analyses were uninformative, likely because we detected puma too infrequently, and because bobcats showed little variation in use across sites. Conclusions Our results support previous research highlighting natural travel corridors (e.g. riparian areas) as important places for wildlife crossings, both for a diversity of medium–large mammals and a low-density large carnivore. Ungulates may be the most selective taxa in respect to undercrossing use. Implications Large, open undercrossings along natural travel routes accommodate the greatest diversity of medium–large mammal species.

Despite being heavily exploited, pangolins (Pholidota: Manidae) have been subject to limited research, resulting in a lack of reliable population estimates and standardised survey methods for the eight extant species. Camera trapping represents a unique opportunity for broad-scale collaborative species monitoring due to its largely nondiscriminatory nature, which creates considerable volumes of data on a relatively wide range of species. This has the potential to shed light on the ecology of rare, cryptic and understudied taxa, with implications for conservation decision-making. We undertook a global analysis of available pangolin data from camera trapping studies across their range in Africa and Asia. Our aims were (1) to assess the utility of existing camera trapping efforts as a method for monitoring pangolin populations, and (2) to gain insights into the distribution and ecology of pangolins. We analysed data collated from 103 camera trap surveys undertaken across 22 countries that fell within the range of seven of the eight pangolin species, which yielded more than half a million trap nights and 888 pangolin encounters. We ran occupancy analyses on three species (Sunda pangolin Manis javanica, white-bellied pangolin Phataginus tricuspis and giant pangolin Smutsia gigantea). Detection probabilities varied with forest cover and levels of human influence for P. tricuspis, but were low (<0.05) for all species. Occupancy was associated with distance from rivers for M. javanica and S. gigantea, elevation for P. tricuspis and S. gigantea, forest cover for P. tricuspis and protected area status for M. javanica and P. tricuspis. We conclude that camera traps are suitable for the detection of pangolins and large-scale assessment of their distributions. However, the trapping effort required to monitor populations at any given study site using existing methods appears prohibitively high. This may change in the future should anticipated technological and methodological advances in camera trapping facilitate greater sampling efforts and/or higher probabilities of detection. In particular, targeted camera placement for pangolins is likely to make pangolin monitoring more feasible with moderate sampling efforts. (c) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. ; Fondation Segr~e; Biodiversity Monitoring Centre (Centre de Surveillance de la Biodiversit ~e) at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Kisangani; Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR); Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST)Department of Science & Technology (India) [SR/S0/AS-100/2007]; Ministry of Education MalaysiaMinistry of Education, Malaysia [NRGS 2013/1088/02]; U.S. National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation (NSF) [BCS 1266389]; AXA Research Fellowship; Gordon and Betty Moore FoundationGordon and Betty Moore Foundation ; Thank you to the many individuals and institutions who generously made their data available for this study, and to the Zoological Society of London and donors to the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group for supporting the time of HK and CB during their research internships. The authors are grateful to Fondation Segr~e for supporting this research. AL would like to thank the Biodiversity Monitoring Centre (Centre de Surveillance de la Biodiversit ~e) at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Kisangani and the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) for financial, academic and logistical support. AM would like to thank Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique for kindly granting permission to conduct research in Gabon. CKO and TB would like to thank the Nouabal~e-Ndoki Foundation and Ministry of Forest Economy, Republic of Congo for kindly providing research permissions. GVG would like to gratefully thank the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India for their funding (DST. No. SR/S0/AS-100/2007), Mr. K. M. Selvan and Mr. S. Lyngdoh for their support in field data collection, and the Department of Environment & Forest, Government of Arunachal Pradesh for permissions. JAMwas supported by Ministry of Education Malaysia (NRGS 2013/1088/02). LAI acknowledges support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (BCS 1266389). ORW was supported by an AXA Research Fellowship. SE would like to thank R. Mueller and R. Roder for their input into data processing. Some data in this publication was provided by the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) Network, a collaboration between Conservation International, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, and partially funded by these institutions, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and other donors.